[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Ilikegreenfire]

Just like Edward Snowden couldn't possibly walk out with some of the closest guarded secrets of the CIA, THE most powerful intelligence agency on the planet. Right? ohhh wait..............



It was done under the table. Just like Alec Ryder's research into SAM which is something the council VERY MUCH disapproves of, which was also done under the table for the initiative.




You're contradicting yourself here. Less than 2 lines ago, you said "no one is going to be able to walk out with them". But now you're saying "Cerberus would have access from when they were official, and could pass them off covertly". Either nobody can walk out with them, or people with sufficient access can. They provided an explanation. Someone with sufficient access could. And it wasn't cerberus, it was a disgruntled Ex-N7 who did it.



What part of prototype cerberus manufacturing plant wasn't clear enough?

The alliance raided the plant, seized the crates of prototypes, then auctioned them off under the table. They didn't see widespread use prior to ME3 because they were prototypes, untested in actual field applications.



The message doesn't have a timestamp on it. It could have happened 90 years ago, it could have happened 90 days ago. It doesn't say.

Therefore, its still plausible.





You're confusing terms. Shepard didn't have a mindcontrol device because that would tamper with his/her personality, but TIM was personally involved with every facet of Shepard's mission. Miranda was very clear, TIM ALWAYS micromanages every single one of his projects. He doesn't trust ANY middleman. EVER.



This wouldn't explain the murder of Jien Garson, and the upper eschelon leadership. Sabotage the very project you're trying to put your hopes on? It doesn't fit his MO.



First off, the initiative began its planning stages 10 years prior to its launch. And secondly, it was stated in ME2, that Project Lazarus, and the building of the Normandy SR-2 was a HEAVY investment that nearly drained TIM's entire fortune. This is not speculation, these are EDI's verbatim words. Granted, he recouped most of his costs with the advances in tech that both Lazarus and the new ship brought forward, but it doesn't change the fact that his investment on these two projects made any potential MASSIVE investments in other projects unlikely at best, downright impossible at worst.

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So I just learned something fun out of the Codex.

Galaxies have an orbit too, just like planets, stars, and solar systems do. At some point, Galaxies end up colliding with each other, merging and forming Quasars. In real life, this is going to happen with the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, in roughly 4 billion years.

Isn't science fun?

In In mass effect you have Full body scanners and also sorts of jamming devices, the only you are getting those schematics out is by memory, unlikely considering all of the N7 guns this happened with. Not to mention anyone who worked on these projects is probably kept on a military base and surveyed 24/7. Plus smuggling plans like this is what get specters called on your ass. Possible but unlikely.

Cerberus was an official black ops organization up until a few moths before me 1 they would have had access to all those schematics without having to get them out of a top secrete military base.

The alliance auctioning off top level weapons made by a terrorist organization instead of using them for themselves or destroying them? Possible but unlikely again.

Yhe Yagh homeworld was quarantined by the coucle in 2125. SO the Shadowbroker Yagh likely came out of that period. Could the shadow broker have sent his men to a planet monitered heavily by the console that would have been alerted if the quarantine was broken possible but not likely. the Origional shadowbroker likely died decades ago. We know he was dead 2 years before the initiative launched because thats when the shadow broker started working with the collectors. Coild the shadow broker have sent out an unfinished message on his netork for no reason handed the keys to the Yagh 2 years before the initiatives launch and just chilled out till its was time to go? possible but not likely.

Whether 2 or 20 years before launch the old shadow broker is almost certainly dead.

He let Shepard off the chain no mind control device, with an expensive ship,and only placed one operative who would take his orders over shepard, at least initially on i, in addition to letting him give Cerberus intel to the alliance and a psychotic killer. He only shows up in ME 2 with lintel, never actually ordering Shepard to do anything. He could have ordered shep to turn over legion, or attest tried to, he didn't. You have to remember TIM only cares about the future of humanity, letting go of a mission might not be comfortable but whoever killed Jein still had loyalty to someone(as i recall it was a human, so it cant be the shadow broker even if he was a live as he predates the human arrival into the greater galexy) Likely TIM a Galaxy away. For all we know much of the nexus power structure could have been loyal to TIM. Tahn is 8th in line that 7+ people time could have had loyal to him that died we will never know.

Iirc only Jein was stated to be murdered, the others still could have simply died to the scourge.

Like I said TIM knew shit was coming 30 years before ME 1 he was gaining resources the entire time, it also isn't like he payed for the whole thing, he had Jein and 4 other races to help pay the way. If he spent a large chuck on the initiative, he would still have funds left to spend rebuilding Shepard leaving his fortune depleted afterwards.

Just think about how much Trumps business ventures make a year, now imagine he was payed by the government for blackops operations, and has other rich friends lining up to pour money into his ideas

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Rebuilding shep was 4 bilion credits + more for the Normandy. That's not all that bad. Trumps net worth is 3 billion and TIM is defiantly far more loaded and successful than Trump. On top of all the illegal shit Cerberus does.

[mickybrighteyes]

I don't remember all the details, but Liara mentioned something about the state of the equipment in the Shadow Broker's room and of his ship indicating that the previous Shadow Broker was killed ~60 years ago. I may be wrong though.

I think it was some dossier or terminal messages concerning someone who worked for teh Shadow Broker capturing the Yaahg and then getting killed and replaced and then the Broker getting offed and the speculation being that it was roughly 60 years prior or whatever based on when the planet was declared off-limits?

edit:

the dossiers/messages didn't excplicitely state anything about the shadow broker's death or replacement. It was more like referencing the agent as possibly compromised and that they should be dealt with with a follow on message saying everything was fine... not unlike Liara's taking over of the organization at the end of the DLC mission.

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Rebuilding shep was 4 bilion credits + more for the Normandy. That's not all that bad. Trumps net worth is 3 billion and TIM is defiantly far more loaded and successful than Trump. On top of all the illegal shit Cerberus does.

But what's the dollar to cred conversion rate?

[Deleted]

But what's the dollar to cred conversion rate?

Three to one i would assume, there is no more America in Mass Effect.

[Nerraw]

The geth. They had a giant telescope on Andromeda and could have seen Remnant. They could have easily hidden on the Arks and Nexus.

The Remnant structures are only 300-400 years old by the time the Initiative arrives. Even if the geth were looking at Andromeda specifically, they would have seen nothing but perfectly fine planets.

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Nothing I said is a spoiler. The telescope info was released prior to the game being launched. And the rest is just speculation. Not every little bit needs to have a spoiler tag if it doesn't actually spoil anything.

I didn't know until I played the game.

[Deleted]

I didn't know until I played the game.

And your own ignorance hindering discussion is getting old.

[May90]

I think I'm starting to understand the backstory. Remnants used to be the dominating race in the cluster, or, possibly, in the entire galaxy. In their experiments with an AI they created the Scourge, an "intelligent dust" (or non-intelligent, not clear at this point), that ultimately polluted their worlds and brought them to the demise. Now the Kett are looking for a way to get control of the Scourge, so they become a new dominating force in the galaxy. Pls don't tell whether it is correct, I want to see later how close I was to the truth!

---

Also, I think I understood another one of my main gripes with open world games: lack of closure to quests. For example, I just cleared a small vault that was supposed to tell me a lot about the Kett interest in Eos. It was very promising, the place was getting hyped for a while, and I thought, "Finally, I will learn something new!" In the end, all I found was some information on the Eos wildlife, which I now have to upload to Prodromos for analysis. And that's it, I got some information I don't even know the details of and what it implies about the Kett, and the quest is over.

In "close world" games quests tend to always come to some kind of resolution. At the very least, you are going to be told, if the information you found doesn't clarify anything, what exactly is the problem with it. Very rarely will you be torn out from the story like this: "Give us this data, we will analyse it. Your job is done, bye-bye".

[mickybrighteyes]

Three to one i would assume, there is no more America in Mass Effect.

the UNAS dissagrees...

[Nerraw]

And your own ignorance hindering discussion is getting old.

I know. Shame on me for wanting to go in unspoiled after how much they revealed from pre-release material regarding 2 and 3.

[pateuvasiliu]

So I played up until I got Tempest but I have to ask... why in the world do people say the Gameplay is better?

You can't pause/issue spells to your squadmates and the cover system feels really weird. Honestly I look at ME3 and I think it's better in almost every way.


I'm playing on Hard ( not Hardest, though I'll probably switch to it once Hard becomes too easy ) and I'm starting to think I would've preferred Andromeda to be made with ME3's engine.


The levelling looks really good though.

[mickybrighteyes]

I think people saying better gameplay are probably talking about how you can jump, float around and dodge... oh and some powers tweaked to have effects when you hold the activation key.

Less tactics with your squad, but a nice change of pace concerning power usage

edit:
my big thing that made ME:A pull out slightly ahead of previous games was actually being able to focus on melee builds and pull techniques from multiple classes to make it work.

[onesBronson]

I have yet to finish the game, but I would like to add my two cents. Around the time you meet the two new races, one comes off as hostile from the beginning while the other gives the Milky Way races a chance at presenting themselves in a more sociable manner. But despite first encounters, one thing I never actually gotten used to was the naming of the Kett.

Since the Nexus was built and researching new races was underway, they came to calling the hostile race Kett from the beginning. And suddenly, after meeting the Angara race, they announced they been at war with the Kett for centuries...hold on a moment. Since when did a race we just discover suddenly start calling their age old rivals the Kett yet the crew board the nexus just made up that name for the hostile races. Did we both settle on calling them Kett from the start or did one of us borrowed that name from the other long before their first encounter between The Milky Way and Angara?

[Tasttey]

So I played up until I got Tempest but I have to ask... why in the world do people say the Gameplay is better?

You can't pause/issue spells to your squadmates and the cover system feels really weird. Honestly I look at ME3 and I think it's better in almost every way.

My biggest issue with your squad was how squishy they were early game (at least on Hard) as well as how poor the AI is when it comes to using their skills. While part of it was my fault, I swear I spent half the time on Eos picking Cora and Liam up off the ground, because I didn't spec them defensively at all and they'd try to fight in melee range. I had to revive Cora twice during the Fiend fight at Site 2 because she kept Charging into it and getting owned.

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I have yet to finish the game, but I would like to add my two cents. Around the time you meet the two new races, one comes off as hostile from the beginning while the other gives the Milky Way races a chance at presenting themselves in a more sociable manner. But despite first encounters, one thing I never actually gotten used to was the naming of the Kett.

Since the Nexus was built and researching new races was underway, they came to calling the hostile race Kett from the beginning. And suddenly, after meeting the Angara race, they announced they been at war with the Kett for centuries...hold on a moment. Since when did a race we just discover suddenly start calling their age old rivals the Kett yet the crew board the nexus just made up that name for the hostile races. Did we both settle on calling them Kett from the start or did one of us borrowed that name from the other long before their first encounter between The Milky Way and Angara?

"Translated from Shelesh"

Honestly its probably the "Universal Translator" that makes it so we hear it as Kett, SAM just subs in our word for the hostile alien race as opposed to the Angaraan word for them; tehet.

[Nerraw]

"Translated from Shelesh"

Honestly its probably the "Universal Translator" that makes it so we hear it as Kett, SAM just subs in our word for the hostile alien race as opposed to the Angaraan word for them; tehet.

This is correct. They also say "The Milky Way" in conversations, but they have their own name for our galaxy. I can't remember what it is, but it's in a Shelesh glossary codex entry.

[Mirishka]

This is correct. They also say "The Milky Way" in conversations, but they have their own name for our galaxy. I can't remember what it is, but it's in a Shelesh glossary codex entry.

Meeeelky Whey.

[Derah]

In In mass effect you have Full body scanners and also sorts of jamming devices

So? Thane mentions how those measures never stopped him from getting into and out of the citadel like he owned the place, presidium included. And the presidium is supposed to be the equivalent of the pentagon in Mass Effect.

the only you are getting those schematics out is by memory, unlikely considering all of the N7 guns this happened with. Not to mention anyone who worked on these projects is probably kept on a military base and surveyed 24/7.

Right. Just like Alec Ryder was kept on a military base and surveyed 24/7 to prevent him from continuing his work on illegal AI. Right? right?

Plus smuggling plans like this is what get specters called on your ass.

Only if the theft is found out. And how would they? Unless they use the N7 weapons in the milky way (which they didn't) there's no way for the alliance to find out that someone smuggled out a copy of the blueprints of highly classified weapons. You only find out someone is bootlegging your shit if you actually SEE the bootlegged shit.

Cerberus was an official black ops organization up until a few moths before me 1 they would have had access to all those schematics without having to get them out of a top secrete military base.

Again, you're contradicting yourself. You're saying its 100% impossible for someone with former access to smuggle the plans without being noticed. But then add that its also possible for someone with former access to smuggle the plans out without being noticed. The source of the plans was a disgruntled Ex-N7 who still had working access codes. This shit happens in real life too you know? People with high security clearance get booted out and they still manage to take a few things with them before going. The codex for the N7 weapons doesn't specify under what circumstances the weapon schematics made it to the Ai research team.

All it says is "Former N7 sold the plans off to the Ai". What if the guy got the plans out while he was still N7, but sold them off once he was kicked out? we don't know.

The alliance auctioning off top level weapons made by a terrorist organization instead of using them for themselves or destroying them? Possible but unlikely again.

"Top level weapons". You're making it sound like the Hornet, Mattock, and Talon are the greatest weapons ever made in the ME universe. They're not. They're low-tier weapons, with several that outclass them by several orders of magnitude. Also, the sale was done under the table. There is such a thing as corruption in government agencies.

Yhe Yagh homeworld was quarantined by the coucle in 2125. SO the Shadowbroker Yagh likely came out of that period. Could the shadow broker have sent his men to a planet monitered heavily by the console that would have been alerted if the quarantine was broken possible but not likely.

Why? Its not like they put a military blockade on the planet. They simply labeled the planet as unsafe for visitation. Animal Reserves in real life are also protected by government agencies across the globe. Doesn't stop poachers and smugglers from getting in, and snagging rare animals to sell on the black market. What makes you think this couldn't' happen with the Yhag?

the Origional shadowbroker likely died decades ago.

[Citation Needed]

There's no timestamp on the logs, so there's no way of knowing WHEN did the Yhag!Shadow Broker took over. All we know is that he came to power recently, because the ship is older than his planet's discovery by the council, no more, no less.

We know he was dead 2 years before the initiative launched because thats when the shadow broker started working with the collectors.

And this proves what exactly? The Shadow Broker knew about the reapers, and was looking for a way out. First he tried bargaining with the collectors to try and get on the reaper's good graces, and when that didn't work out, he decided to inject his funds into the Ai to escape to Andromeda. It fits.

Coild the shadow broker have sent out an unfinished message on his netork for no reason handed the keys to the Yagh 2 years before the initiatives launch and just chilled out till its was time to go? possible but not likely.

Again, there's no timestamp on those messages, nor is there any context for what circumstances where they sent on.

Whether 2 or 20 years before launch the old shadow broker is almost certainly dead.

Possible, but not 100% confirmed.

He let Shepard off the chain no mind control device, with an expensive ship,and only placed one operative who would take his orders over shepard, at least initially on i, in addition to letting him give Cerberus intel to the alliance and a psychotic killer. He only shows up in ME 2 with lintel, never actually ordering Shepard to do anything. He could have ordered shep to turn over legion, or attest tried to, he didn't.

When you assault the cerberus base in ME3, you find video logs that explain this unusual generosity. He was trying to manipulate shepard into doing what he wanted, without issuing direct orders. He knew directly bossing around someone as stubborn and strong-willed as shepard would blow up in his face, which is why he tried the subtler approach. Whether it works or not depends entirely on what you choose at the end of ME2.

You have to remember TIM only cares about the future of humanity, letting go of a mission might not be comfortable but whoever killed Jein still had loyalty to someone(as i recall it was a human, so it cant be the shadow broker even if he was a live as he predates the human arrival into the greater galexy)

[ Citation Needed ] I don't recall anyone ever saying that the assailant, or whoever was pulling their strings was human, or loyal to a human.

Rebuilding shep was 4 bilion credits + more for the Normandy. That's not all that bad. Trumps net worth is 3 billion and TIM is defiantly far more loaded and successful than Trump. On top of all the illegal shit Cerberus does.

You are assuming 1 credit = 1 dollar. That's a gigantic presumption to make.

[I Push Buttons]

[Citation Needed]

There's no timestamp on the logs, so there's no way of knowing WHEN did the Yhag!Shadow Broker took over. All we know is that he came to power recently, because the ship is older than his planet's discovery by the council, no more, no less..

There is one time frame... The original Shadow Broker had the Yhag kidnapped shortly after their civilization's discovery in 2125 and shortly thereafter the Yhag replaced the operative that kidnapped him.

So unless it spent sixty years faithfully serving the Shadow Broker without suspicion before killing and replacing him... Its a pretty safe assumption that they came to blows and the Yhag won decades before the DLC.

[pateuvasiliu]

My biggest issue with your squad was how squishy they were early game (at least on Hard) as well as how poor the AI is when it comes to using their skills. While part of it was my fault, I swear I spent half the time on Eos picking Cora and Liam up off the ground, because I didn't spec them defensively at all and they'd try to fight in melee range. I had to revive Cora twice during the Fiend fight at Site 2 because she kept Charging into it and getting owned.

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"Translated from Shelesh"

Honestly its probably the "Universal Translator" that makes it so we hear it as Kett, SAM just subs in our word for the hostile alien race as opposed to the Angaraan word for them; tehet.

Oh yeah I learned my lesson from ME1-3. With no tactics on my squad I just make them bullet sponges.

I love that I can take any skills. Right now I run Overload, Concussive Shot, Incinerate. The latter 2 I can bend around walls and Overload deals with shields.

I use a Mattock for mid-long range and another fast hitting rifle for close quarters.

[PACOX]

So I played up until I got Tempest but I have to ask... why in the world do people say the Gameplay is better?

You can't pause/issue spells to your squadmates and the cover system feels really weird. Honestly I look at ME3 and I think it's better in almost every way.


I'm playing on Hard ( not Hardest, though I'll probably switch to it once Hard becomes too easy ) and I'm starting to think I would've preferred Andromeda to be made with ME3's engine.


The levelling looks really good though.

The combat reminds me of Gears of War (or how I remember it because I only played of them at a friends house years ago) but with a more tactical approach.

ME1-3 were hallway/trench fights where you exchanged barrages with your enemy. ME:A battlespaces are more towards 360 degree battles. You still move from cover to cover, you have to or you'll get crewed up until about the middle of the game, but its no longer trench-like warfare where you just move up inch by inch.

I think they should have left some sort of tactical view in but I don't think its absence is detrimental to the game. Same with being able to direct your squadmates or have any real influence over them other than telling them to stay put. I didn't want Liam going melee because he would die so I had to avoid putting points into his melee abilities...Either way I do feel like your squad is better than other Bioware games. I can count of them to take half a room, prime/detonate combos, and watch my flank.

[Derah]

So I played up until I got Tempest but I have to ask... why in the world do people say the Gameplay is better?

You can't pause/issue spells to your squadmates and the cover system feels really weird. Honestly I look at ME3 and I think it's better in almost every way.

The combat is very okay-ish at first. It doesn't really start to shine until later when you start unlocking profiles, and skill chains. What starts as a pretty generic third person cover shooter, quickly becomes a 3-dimentional battlefield with insane combos and builds.

You have to first unlock the more crazy augs, mods, and passives on each profile before you truly see the combat shine.

If you just got the Tempest, that means your combat experience is only on Habitat 7. That's not a very good metric to measure the game's gameplay yet. Neither will Eos for the most part.

[frogger237]

Was Finishing up the find the researchers stations quest on Eos and get to the place her final entry is and there is a door I cant get past and a chest that when I try and open it SAM tells me I should scan it and I can't loot it? Is this a bug or is the door and chest used for another mission later?